Many modern automobiles have vehicle detection systems facilitating semi-autonomous and autonomous driving features such as collision avoidance. The vehicle detection systems use various methods of processing data from a scanner of the vehicle to detect the presence and determine the dynamics of other vehicles. These methods include Hough match methods and parametric L-shape methods.
However, Hough match methods and parametric L-shape methods have limitations. Hough match methods are computationally expensive and generate profiles that have discrete resolution and fixed size. Such profiles do not accurately describe the size or shape of many objects. Parametric L-shape methods are unstable and generally only useful for objects with rectangular profiles. For curved profiles, an L-shape can be fit to the curve in different ways, making it difficult to determine the orientation of the object.